This is an (English-speaking) thread to gather the results of all volunteers participating in the proofreading of Quetin i lambe eldaiva V1.9. Please enter here any typos, comments and other errors you may spot.

Apparently an example of a noun ending in -n is desired, but lómin is Qenya with an unusual formation -in for nouns in later Quenya and there is a multitude of other words for 'shadow'.

p.17
>something happes

>>happens

>imbi between, among

Imbe before dual?

p. 24
>has somwhat more

>> somewhat

p.25
>In order to achieve a more pleasant sound (which is important in Quenya), presumably the
>formation of the dual in -u is preferred for words which have -t- or -d- in their last syllable [...]

Is there a reason to mark this paragraph grey? It's exactly what is said in the footnote Let:347.

>Presumably, it is the presence of the definite article which makes a distinction between the
>two different functions of the partitive plural: Expressions with the definite article seem to
>be translated with ’many’ and those without is as ’some’.

I can't see the role of the article mentioned anywhere. I think it's an obsolete, somewhat artificial distinguishing of the meanings 'some' and 'many' based on the formerly availible examples. I would say that the partitive plural can mean 'some' or 'many' according ot the context, but never 'all' or 'all that have been mentioned before'. And the article is seldom used because this plural is not definite.

p.26, 28, 35 etc.
>andune ringa (a cold evening)
>anduni

>> andúne, andúni

p.28
>rimba much

'Much' is an adverb, making it somewhat ambiguous. Why not 'frequent, numerous' as it is glossed in Etym?

p.24, 28, 32 etc.
>Noldoiva belonging to the Noldor

Maybe better attested Noldorinwa? (as Sindarinwa, Eldarinwa)

p.32
>omentieo

>>omentiéo? Maybe even omentiéno (PE17:59)? And perhaps also Hísiélo throughout the course?
It should probably be noted that the awkward stress patterns may result every time when a whole syllable is appended, not just -va (i.e. most often also -o, -nen).

>somthing is part

>>something

p.38

>Lendemme na taure ar tirnemme. Cennemme Sinda mi taure. Quentemme.

Shouldn't it be dual because Hísiel speaks of Nenwe and herself?

p.46
>Haryasse olori

Better sam- (PE17:173)?

p.47
>Sere

>> sére

>uan cáre (I am not making)

>> uan cára

p.48
>rancorya oronye (their arms arose)

Needs to be corrected dependent on how many raised arms are intended. Also, ranko has the stem ranku-.

>umea evil

>> úmea

>Mára mesta. (Good journey.)

Qenya alert - mára lende/lelie?

Also:
p.19 -lwe
p.41 -lva
I think it should be either -lwe, -lwa, gen. -lvo (because wo is not allowed); or -lv- throughout.

p. 61 arlinwenya ? or rather arilinwenya
Since in the paragraphe before it is said that rl is problematic and ari- should be used

p. 64 Nóte orcoron avánie avánier
A number of orcs has departed have departed

I feel that in Quenya and in English the verb should be in the plural as it refers to the orcs and not to the number. At least in English it is so, e.g. The number of people that have come versus The number of people that has increased...

Apparently an example of a noun ending in -n is desired, but lómin is Qenya with an unusual formation -in for nouns in later Quenya and there is a multitude of other words for 'shadow'.

I don't quite get the rational for throwing the word out.

* for example #lómëa 'gloomy' occurs in LOTR, giving ample evidence that the root hasn't changed but is still associated with darkness, shadow and so on

* which leaves the claim that noun formation in -in is unusual in later Quenya - which I can't quite verify, e.g. arin 'morning' from AR is a rather good example having to do with light instead of darkness

So you'd eliminate the word basically on the grounds that it is attested in LT only. I admit that goes a bit far for me, and I like a Quenya where more then one way of expressing an idea exists.

Zitat:

Imbe before dual?

This is explained later in the lesson on prepositions - no need to squeeze all information into the earliest occasion something shows up

Zitat:

I can't see the role of the article mentioned anywhere. I think it's an obsolete, somewhat artificial distinguishing of the meanings 'some' and 'many' based on the formerly availible examples.

I can't see the formerly available examples invalidated or obsoleted by PE17, and as I clearly state, I give more weight to grammar actually seen in texts than to grammar being described. In addition, I think it's quite a useful distinction.

Zitat:

Maybe better attested Noldorinwa? (as Sindarinwa, Eldarinwa)

I think you're missing the point - this is chiefly about getting acquainted with the possessive case so early in the lessons. Of course I'd write Noldorinwa in a Neo-Quenya text of my own - but in the early lessons, I hardly write anything as I would usually write it because there's no so much grammar available and so we express things in unusual ways.

Zitat:

omentiéo? Maybe even omentiéno (PE17:59)? And perhaps also Hísiélo throughout the course?
It should probably be noted that the awkward stress patterns may result every time when a whole syllable is appended, not just -va (i.e. most often also -o, -nen).

Actually, maybe rather Hísiello if I think of it. Good point with the stress patterns though. I have to think about the -n- variants, at the moment I fear it's just too complicated.

Zitat:

Shouldn't it be dual because Hísiel speaks of Nenwe and herself?

Technically it would be exclusive dual 'the two of us but not you' - but since I decided to have only one dual, it's either dual here or exclusive - and I decided that the idea of exclusive is more important than the fact that there were two and not three elves - after all, a dual we 'you and me' is somewhat special, but an exclusive dual isn't actually a special situation conceptually.

So, after some thinking I settled on exclusive 'we' here.

Zitat:

Better sam- (PE17:173)?

Why?

Zitat:

Qenya alert - mára lende/lelie?

Well - again - why throw out a phrase which Tolkien wrote? What's actually wrong with mesta? Does it contradict anything? Is it weird in Quenya phonology? Or is it simply attested in the wrong source?

@Órerámar:

Zitat:

I feel that in Quenya and in English the verb should be in the plural as it refers to the orcs and not to the number.

It's actually not so in German - here singular would be used, so it's not so obvious. Tolkien-made examples like i Eldar mahtane (VT49:6) or i oromardi tanna lende (PE16:96) would indicate that when one thinks of a group, rather singular is used.

I thought the word lúva had a long ú. Has that changed by recent publications?

S. 22: "the sounds nd, mb, ng and ngw. Note that d, b, g, and gw can appear in Quenya only in these combinations" – there is also LD, RD

S. 28: Introducing anna as the letter for Y is inappropiate. Y belongs to the palatal series. According to appendix E, "the palatals were represented by a Fëanorian diacritic denoting 'following y'". Anna cannot represent the palatal sound Y by itself, because it belongs to the k-series. It is a mute letter that serves as a mere carrier.

S. 42: The sa-rince to be used for the combination X would probably be added beneath the lúva, not at the right side of the telco. There are attested samples of quessetéma tengwar with a sa-rince at the right side of the telco, but these represent English plural S. In the one attested sample of X, the sa-rince is added beneath the lúva (DTS 10).

S. 104: "In fact, Quenya is very restrictive regarding what consonant clusters are allowed in principle." – It is compared to Indoeuropean languages that usually allow for very complex consonant clusters, and especially in the case of Germanic languages. In comparison to a wider range languages, however, Quenya phonotactics are rather avarage than very restricted (see for instance in the World Atlas of Language Structures).

I can't see the formerly available examples invalidated or obsoleted by PE17, and as I clearly state, I give more weight to grammar actually seen in texts than to grammar being described. In addition, I think it's quite a useful distinction.

They're not invalidated. The greater picture is visible now. Until the last publications it was somewhat confusing that falma-li was translated 'waves-many', although the plural was not called *'multiplicative' or something, but 'partitive'. So the tentative idea was that in teh article in i falmali may give the shade of meaning 'many waves'.
But this can hardly be the case since Eldali without article is translated both as 'some Elves' and 'a lot of Elves'. And which 'grammar actually seen in texts' supports the first view?

Zitat:

Well - again - why throw out a phrase which Tolkien wrote? What's actually wrong with mesta? Does it contradict anything? Is it weird in Quenya phonology? Or is it simply attested in the wrong source?

For starters - which root is it derived from?
In my view every early word bears a probability with it that it has been rejected (surely I can't prove it was if that's what you want). Especially when there are lots of later alternatives I would think the probability is high and letting it in is avoidable at the same time.

Isn't that a mixing of conceptions? Sure, we have 3rd sg. inanimate ta in antaróta and Etym, pl. toi presumably from #to, leading us to suspect an inanimate pl. *tai; but after LotR the only conception I see is that sg. sa/se and pl. ta/te are differentiated according to animate/inanimate wihtout any plural suffixes. Hence also khy- > khye 'other person', khya 'other thing' (VT49:14). Already in Átaremma there is avatyarilta 'we forgive them' with pl. ta.

>Here, me stands for inclusive (and possible exclusive?) ’we’,

It's in any case exclusive (because of excl. -mme). For the inclusive form one could choose from ñwe, we|ve, ñe in a waz that wouldn't contradict the verbal suffixes.

p.67
>nyessená.

>>nyesse ná

p.68
>Márenya

>>marinya; Perhaps one could put in mélamrimma (PE17:109) into the text?, it fits quite well.

>centaro (potter),

>>centano; or acutally -tamo according to PE17:108

>ingólmo (loremaster),

>>ingolmo

p.70
>ondolisse

Either ondolissen or it should be mentioned earlier in the course that pl. suffixes may be omitted in the partitive plural.

First of all, thanks for the work of course. In all the discussions, that remains unsaid too often.

Zitat:

p.16, 21, 24
>Lelyeas nu lómini.
>lómin shadow
>na ilya lómin

Apparently an example of a noun ending in -n is desired, but lómin is Qenya with an unusual formation -in for nouns in later Quenya and there is a multitude of other words for 'shadow'.

I decided to keep lómin - throwing out Qenya is nice when it actually contradicts something later, but this doesn't seem to.

Zitat:

p.17
>something happes

>>happens

>imbi between, among

Imbe before dual?

p. 24
>has somwhat more

>> somewhat

p.25
>In order to achieve a more pleasant sound (which is important in Quenya), presumably the
>formation of the dual in -u is preferred for words which have -t- or -d- in their last syllable [...]

Is there a reason to mark this paragraph grey? It's exactly what is said in the footnote Let:347.

p.26, 28, 35 etc.
>andune ringa (a cold evening)
>anduni

>> andúne, andúni

p.28
>rimba much

'Much' is an adverb, making it somewhat ambiguous. Why not 'frequent, numerous' as it is glossed in Etym?

I changed these.

Zitat:

p.24, 28, 32 etc.
>Noldoiva belonging to the Noldor

Maybe better attested Noldorinwa? (as Sindarinwa, Eldarinwa)

I agree that Noldorinwa is probably better, but here it should not serve as vocabulary but introduce the possessive case, so I decided to keep the form.

Zitat:

p.32
>omentieo

>>omentiéo? Maybe even omentiéno (PE17:59)? And perhaps also Hísiélo throughout the course?
It should probably be noted that the awkward stress patterns may result every time when a whole syllable is appended, not just -va (i.e. most often also -o, -nen).

I decided to introduce the additional -n- in genitive and dative as optional and separated out a section to explain the lengthening in general for every syllabic ending.

Zitat:

>somthing is part

>>something

Changed it.

Zitat:

p.38

>Lendemme na taure ar tirnemme. Cennemme Sinda mi taure. Quentemme.

Shouldn't it be dual because Hísiel speaks of Nenwe and herself?

My decision is not to use dual here for aforementioned reasons.

Zitat:

p.46
>Haryasse olori

Better sam- (PE17:173)?

I take your point and changed it.

Zitat:

p.47
>Sere

>> sére

>uan cáre (I am not making)

>> uan cára

Changed those.

Zitat:

p.48
>rancorya oronye (their arms arose)

Needs to be corrected dependent on how many raised arms are intended. Also, ranko has the stem ranku-.

Since this is too complicated an example, I used the less-problematic yulma instead.

Zitat:

>umea evil

>> úmea

Changed it.

Zitat:

>Mára mesta. (Good journey.)

I decided to keep it. The downside is that this is indeed Qenya and that the stem of the word is not clear. The upside is that it doesn't contradict any known Quenya grammar, the word is fine as far as phonology goes, and most important it is one of the few Tolkien-made phrases for greeting and farewell. So the reader has the benefit of possibly recognizing and being able to translate it when he gets the Father Christmas Letters. Since it doesn't actually enter the vocabulary, I don't see much damage done, but some advantage.

I thought the word lúva had a long ú. Has that changed by recent publications?

No, it's a genuine mistake by myself

Zitat:

S. 22: "the sounds nd, mb, ng and ngw. Note that d, b, g, and gw can appear in Quenya only in these combinations" – there is also LD, RD

True, I added those and a reference to the next lesson.

Zitat:

S. 28: Introducing anna as the letter for Y is inappropiate. Y belongs to the palatal series. According to appendix E, "the palatals were represented by a Fëanorian diacritic denoting 'following y'". Anna cannot represent the palatal sound Y by itself, because it belongs to the k-series. It is a mute letter that serves as a mere carrier.

Strictly speaking, this is true, but it is useful to think of anna representing y still. So I left things here as they were, but added an explanation in 4.4.1.

Zitat:

S. 42: The sa-rince to be used for the combination X would probably be added beneath the lúva, not at the right side of the telco. There are attested samples of quessetéma tengwar with a sa-rince at the right side of the telco, but these represent English plural S. In the one attested sample of X, the sa-rince is added beneath the lúva (DTS 10).

DTS10 is likewise an English text, no? So, while I can see your point that this may be so in Quenya, it's a bit shaky. Given the considerable amount of work to rewrite the typesetting macros, I guess I leave it as is based on this evidence.

Zitat:

S. 104: "In fact, Quenya is very restrictive regarding what consonant clusters are allowed in principle." – It is compared to Indoeuropean languages that usually allow for very complex consonant clusters, and especially in the case of Germanic languages. In comparison to a wider range languages, however, Quenya phonotactics are rather avarage than very restricted (see for instance in the World Atlas of Language Structures).

That may be true - but the vast majority of readers are not linguists and moreover will come somewhere from the Indo-European language family. So, given the most likely level of experience with languages of a reader, the sentence is true.

As I argued on Elfling - sometimes it's better to make a statement in an introduction that isn't strictly true, because the strictly correct statement is bound to confuse people.

These three usages of the verb in singular, plural and dual with no ending, -r and -t are called personless verb forms.

I find this way of expression a little bit confusing, especially for a beginner – your could maybe add something along the line of: "… verbs ending ending -a or -¨ea in the singular or –r and –t in the plural and dual respectively"

p. 19 famililar form -> familiar forms

p. 19

Zitat:

3. Person (animate)
3. Person (neuter)

Does this distinction really hold? I find that e.g. in German or Russian you can have animate neuter nouns, so wouldn't a less ambiguous way of labelling be 'animate' and 'inanimate'?

p. 20

Zitat:

’To be’ is often left out when it is understood, and usually moves towards the end of the sentence.

Maybe add "when it is present" (otherwise it cannot move anywhere...)

p. 24 Mithrimessë
I just wish to say that I don't feel too comfortable about this mix of Sindarin noun + Quenya ending, but I am also at a loss to provide a better alternative. I'm not sure if PE17:140 "Sindar was a Quenya translation of Mîthrim." may be interpreted in such a way as to allow a construction along the line of **"Nén Sindarwa", nor can I find any hint that such a name, or in fact any Quenya name for this lake, was at all in existence...

p. 27 Adverbs in Quenya work not so different from English,
-> differently

Zitat:

@Órerámar:

Zitat:

I feel that in Quenya and in English the verb should be in the plural as it refers to the orcs and not to the number.

It's actually not so in German - here singular would be used, so it's not so obvious. Tolkien-made examples like i Eldar mahtane (VT49:6) or i oromardi tanna lende (PE16:96) would indicate that when one thinks of a group, rather singular is used.

Anyway, Órerámar is right in that in English it should read "a number of.... are", as it is "the orcs" (and not the number) that functions as the head of the noun phrase. Maybe you could say "a gang (or horde, team, band...) of orcs" to make this group take a singular verb?

Mhm.. Since this is from LED-, the perfect tense should maybe be *elérie and the gerund *lerie, cf. led(e)mbasse > lerembas (PE17:52).

OK, I have to revise this - it would depend on the conceptional stage. In Q&E the root is DEL-, T. delia.

lessons 11-15

p.83
>This meaning is rather uncertain and it seems likely that Tolkien dismissed the notion of a causal an ’for,
>because’ in later texts

Tolkien is quite precise on this in PE17:90. Apparently it can be used as a causal 'for', although it's not the literal meaning. So he actually found a way to keep an in Namárie without any Anglicisms.

p.84
>*yo (together with)

Why the asterisk?

p.85
>Nai ni ecéniere . (Hopefully she has seen me!)

>>ecéniesse

p.86
Á atalelya! (Fall back!)

Better nanwen- (PE17:166) I think, since ata- is 'the same or other agent in repeating a previous action' (ibid.)

>I macari varuvar men sina ortaine turmainen.
>(The swordsmen will defend this place using a shield wall.)

I don't understand ortaine - 'lifted up'? A 'shield wall' would be sandastan.

>I roqueni leluvar minyar.

>>lelyuvar

>ehte, ecco or hatal (spear),

I suppose hatal is more of a javelin, just for throwing.

p.88
>Merin hire i tie valarauco.
>I wish to find the trail of the balrog.

Preciser runyar 'slots, footprints'?

p.90
>car- (to do)! acárie (has done) cárienwa (having done)

This is how I interpreted PE17:68 at first too, but on the second thought I see it differently. Kari-nwa is a past participle formed from an aorist stem, so the whole notion of the 'past' and 'passive' apparently lies in the suffix -nwa. The addition this has a past form kárienwa is probably implying that the same past participle can also be formed from an explicit past stem, although it's rare; so that the suffix -nwa is left to cover the notion of 'passive'.
Otherwise it appears totally confusing to me; -nwa would be passive (and past) in combination with an aorist stem, but active in cobination with a past stem.
Besides, I think the whole passage is a tentative explanation of vanwa (there are no other participles of this structure anywhere). Q&E doesn't mention this suffix, although it doesn't state directly how vanwa is derived, either. It does, however, mention intrusion of n from the past in avánie which makes this verb essentially irregular.
So, tentative as all of it is - maybe it shouldn't be mentioned in the course at all?

>But especially in later times, the Elves also adopted a base 10 system.

It sounds as if they first had a duodecimal system and only then developed the decimal one, which is of course the other way round.

>There are also two variant forms, lepen may also used to denote seven

seven >> five

p.92
>eldaron lepmeo.

>>lempeo

p.96
>Ninquelote
p.99
lote

>>-lóte

>Aurion neldé lendiemme
>Three days we travelled

Aurion nelde is kind of adverbial here, it's not really the accusative for the verb lelya-.

>cotumova
>hísieva

>> hísiéva, cotumóva

p.97
>The respective [passage]

We have now several examples where -s is just a short locative: sís, sisse 'here' (VT49:18), tás, tasse (VT49:11)

>One might find:
>Tira! (Look!)
>Tula! (Come!)

The paragraph is grey, but kena and tira are now actually attested (VT47:31).

p.99
>you can ask

>>You

p.102
>unduhuineva

>>unduhuinéva

p.102, 106
>Lá ea tarna tere i oronti

Cilya is specifically a pass between mountains; tarna is Qenya and clashes with later TAR- 'stand' (P17:186)

p.102
>Terlelyante

>>tellelyante

>hísienen

>>hísiénen

p.105
>Loicare n´e ohtacar nauconnar. (A mistaken deed was to make war against the dwarves.)

>>ohtacarie?

>matha toron

>>mahta

>alquetima is something which cannot be told,...
>avaquetima denotes something...